On this solemn occasion I find it my
pleasant duty to extend my thanks once more to the Swedish
Academy, which has awarded me the Nobel Prize.

As I have already had occasion to testify in public, the feeling
of satisfaction which this award arouses in me is not solely due
to the international recognition of my professional merits and my
individual characteristics as a writer. I am proud that this
Prize has been awarded to a Russian, a Soviet writer. Here I
represent a multitude of writers from my native land.

I have also previously expressed my satisfaction that,
indirectly, this Prize is yet another recognition of the novel as
a genre. I have not infrequently read and heard recent statements
which have quite frankly astonished me, in which the novel has
been declared an outdated form that does not correspond to
present-day demands. Yet it is just the novel that makes possible
the most complete comprehension of the world of reality, that
permits the projection of one's attitude to this world, to its
burning problems.

One might say that the novel is the genre that most predisposes
one to a profound insight into the tremendous life around us,
instead of putting forward one's own tiny ego as the centre of
the universe. This genre, by its very nature, affords the very
widest scope for a realistic artist.

Many fashionable currents in art reject realism, which they
assume has served its time. Without fear of being accused of
conservatism, I wish to proclaim that I hold a contrary opinion
and am a convinced supporter of realistic art.

There is a lot of talk nowadays about literary avantgardism with
reference to the most modern experiments, particularly in the
field of form. In my opinion the true pioneers are those artists
who make manifest in their works the new content, the determining
characteristics of life in our time.

Both realism as a whole and the realistic novel are based upon
artistic experiences presented by great masters in the past.
During their development, however, they have acquired important
new features that are fundamentally modern.

I am speaking of a realism that carries within itself the concept
of life's regeneration, its reformation for the benefit of
mankind. I refer, of course, to the realism we describe as
socialist. Its peculiar quality is that it expresses a philosophy
of life that accepts neither a turning away from the world nor a
flight from reality, a philosophy that enables one to comprehend
goals that are dear to the hearts of millions of people and that
lights up their path in the struggle.

Mankind is not divided into a flock of individuals, people
floating about in a vacuum, like cosmonauts who have penetrated
beyond the pull of Earth's gravity. We live on Earth, we are
subject to its laws and, as the Gospel puts it, sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof, its troubles and trials, its hopes
for a better future. Vast sections of the world's population are
inspired by the same desires, and live for common interests that
bind them together far more than they separate them.

These are the working people, who create everything with their
hands and their brains. I am one of those authors who consider it
their highest honour and their highest liberty to have a
completely untrammelled chance of using their pens to serve the
working people.

This is the ultimate foundation. From it are derived the
conclusions as to how I, a Soviet writer, view the place of the
artist in the world of today.

The era we live in is full of uncertainty. Yet there is not one
nation on Earth that desires a war. There are, however, forces
that hurl whole nations into the furnaces of war. Is it not
inevitable that the ashes from the indescribable conflagration of
the Second World War should move the writer's heart? Is not an
honest writer bound to stand up against those who wish to condemn
mankind to self-destruction?

What, then, is the vocation and what are the tasks of an artist
who sees himself, not as an image of a god who is indifferent to
the sufferings of mankind, enthroned far above the heat of
battle, but as a son of his people, a tiny particle of
humanity?

To be honest with the reader, to tell people the truth - which
may sometimes be unpleasant but is always fearless. To strengthen
men's hearts in their belief in the future, in the belief in
their own ability to build this future. To be a champion of peace
throughout the world and with his words breed such champions
wherever those words penetrate. To unite people in their natural,
noble striving toward progress.

Art possesses a great ability to influence people's intellects
and brains. I believe that anyone has the right to call himself
an artist, if he channels this ability into creating someting
beautiful in the minds of men, if he benefits humanity.

My own people have not followed beaten tracks in their historical
journey. Their journey has been that of the explorers, the
pioneers for a new life. I have regarded and still regard it as
my task as an author in all that I have written and in whatever I
may come to write, to show my great respect for this nation of
workers, this nation of builders, this nation of heroes, which
has never attacked anyone but which knows how to put up an
honourable defence of what it has created, of its freedom and
dignity, of its right to build the future as it chooses.

I should like my books to assist people in becoming better, in
becoming purer in their minds; I should like them to arouse love
of one's fellow men, a desire to fight actively for the ideal of
humanity and the progress of mankind. If I have managed to do
this in some measure, then I am happy.

I thank all those of you here tonight, and all those who have
sent me greetings and good wishes in connection with the Nobel
Prize.

Prior to the speech, Karl Ragnar Gierow of
the Swedish Academy addressed the Soviet novelist: «Mr.
Sholokhov - You received news of the Nobel Prize when in the Ural
Mountains for a couple of weeks' shooting, and, according to a
Moscow newspaper, that same day you brought down two fine greylag
geese at a long range with a single shot. But if you are
celebrated tonight as the crack marksman amongst the Nobel
laureates, it is because that coincidental hit has a certain
relevance to your work.

An epic achievement like yours could be written on that enormous
scale, with that breadth of view, with that wild and still
majestic flow of events and figures, with that imposing execution
of the theme - with all that, and be a masterpiece, never to be
forgotten. Or the epic could be presented with that vivid sense
of the dramatic situation, with that sharp eye for every detail
of artistic value, with that passionate feeling for its
characters - with all that, and be a work of art, always to be
loved. The combination of both is the mark of the genius, of your
genius. It is about as common as seeing two birds in flight
aligned with one's gunsight. You brought the two down with one
shot.

Your great epic of an old rule, desperately defending itself, and
a new rule, as desperately fighting for every foot of
blood-drenched earth, keeps posing from the outset the question:
who-or what-rules? It also provides an answer. It says: the
heart. The human heart, with all it holds of love and cruelty,
hope and sorrow, pride and debasement. The human heart, which is
the real battlefield of all victories and defeats that befall
this earth of ours. Thus your art ranges beyond all frontiers,
and we take it to our hearts with the deepest
gratitude.»

* Mr Sholokov's
dinner speech is being considered as his Nobel Lecture.